Steps to Creating a Peaceful Mind

January 31, 2022

My name is Jim Kwik, the founder of Kwik Brain Universe, author of the best-selling book LIMITLESS and host of the #1 brain performance podcast, Kwik Brain. I am a world leading expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. After a childhood brain injury left me learning-challenged, I made it my life’s mission to create strategies to dramatically enhance mental performance. Once I was able to turn my own learning challenges around, I dedicated my life to helping people like you unleash your true genius and brainpower to learn anything faster and live a life of greater power, productivity, and purpose.

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How do you calm and quiet your thoughts so you can create a peaceful mind?

Your brain isn’t designed to work at full speed all the time. Learning how to find that calm state of mind is essential for your life, career, and well-being. But when you wear a lot of hats and your to-do lists have to-do lists, it can be challenging to turn off the noise in your head and create a peaceful mind.

Today, I will give you some practical exercises that will help calm your thoughts and quiet your mind. By learning how to give your brain a break you can become more peaceful, productive, and creative.

These relaxed moments often produce the best insights and inspiration.

Today, more leaders measure success by peace of mind rather than profits or prestige. If you struggle with getting stuck in your head with an endless loop of fears, frustration, projects, and plans, this episode is for you.

***If you’re inspired, I want to invite you to join me in my brand NEW 7-day course, specifically designed to boost your confidence. I know it sounds too good to be true, but I give you step-by-step guides using the accelerated learning model to make you unstoppable in a short time. Visit kwikconfidence.com to join me today.***

"Your brain isn't designed to run at full steam all the time. Learning how to calm your mind is vital for your overall well-being."

Jim Kwik

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Calm Your Mind

Take a moment to stop what you’re doing right now.
Close your eyes.
Focus your awareness by bringing your hand to your heart.
Take a deep breath and put all of your attention on your breathing.
Ask yourself: What do you want? What are you grateful for?
Breathe normally and just be present in this moment.
Open your eyes.
How do you feel?
Peace and quiet are precious and rare commodities these days, especially in a day full of distractions and conflict.
Your brain is like a supercomputer. It comes preinstalled with an operating system that is susceptible to overwhlem and distraction.
To create a peaceful mind, you need to install more of what’s in your nature: calm, harmony, and balance.
Your brain is not designed to run full throttle 24/7.
To avoid burnout, you have to take time to quiet your mind.
A sense of calm and peace of mind is something you have, it’s something you create.

Remember Q.U.I.E.T

Q = Questions

Questions are the answer. Ask yourself the right questions, and you’ll get better answers.
Questions focus your thoughts and filter out the noise cluttering your mind.
You can try asking yourself some questions like: What do you live for? What are you grateful for? Who are you thankful for? What makes you happy?
Notice when you ask questions, it directs your focus.
If you want to calm your mind, direct your focus, and increase your concentration, ask more questions.
They help clear out the noise and find what’s most important.

U = Unplug

It’s important to disconnect in order to reconnect.
Your mind is under never-ending assault from app notifications, social media alerts, calendar reminders, etc.
One of the easiest ways to calm your mind is to turn off as many distractions as possible.
The hustle 24/7 mentality believes that constant work is positive and that breaks equate to laziness.
But science disagrees.
There are a lot of benefits to performance and productivity when you have peace of mind.
An easy way to ground yourself is spending time in nature.
A Stanford University study found that participants who walked in nature had lower blood flow to the parts of the brain associated with rumination.
Rumination is what you do when you can’t stop thinking negative thoughts about yourself or get stuck in a negative mental pattern.
Whenever possible, spend time outside.
Maybe take your lunch break at the park or go for a walk on your break.

I = Integrate

This is referring to sensory integration.
It’s the process of receiving information through your senses.
You organize that information and use it to participate in daily activities.
In addition to the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, you have two other senses.
The first is your vestibular sense.
This is your sense of movement and balance that tells your brain where your head and body are in space.
It’s what allows you to stay upright while you sit, stand, and walk.
You can learn more about how to use your vestibular sense to gain peace of mind in our episode with Aaron Alexander, here.
The other sense is proprioception.
That’s your body awareness.
It tells your brain where your body parts are relative to each other and how much force to exert when completing certain activities like cracking an egg.
In addition to regulating your awareness through the five senses, studies have shown that you can do this through balance and body awareness as well.
Techniques like dimming the lights, sitting under a weighted blanket, gently swaying while on an exercise ball, or balancing on one leg all help bring you into your body and out of your mind.
Use your senses to calm your mind by redirecting your attention back into your body.
Ask yourself: What does your breathing feel like? What can you taste? Hear? Smell?
Yoga is an excellent exercise to help with this.
It engages your parasympathetic dominance response which triggers relaxation.
Through deep diaphragmatic breathing and focused physical movements, yoga helps with relaxation by developing better body awareness.

E = Exercise

Will Smith does two things every day: he runs and reads.
You have to exercise both your body and mind to achieve peace of mind.
Neurological research has identified a strong link between aerobic exercise and cognitive clarity.
Exercise also leads to neurogenesis—the birth of new brain cells—primarily in the hippocampus.
The hippocampus is the region of the brain associated with learning and memory.
This may explain why so many studies identify a link between aerobic exercise and memory improvement.

T = Transcendental Meditation

It doesn’t have to be this specific type of meditation to be effective in helping calm your mind.
Transcendental meditation is one of the most widely practiced and researched meditation techniques.
It’s a nonreligious type of method of relaxation, stress reduction, and self-development.
Mindfulness is the practice of focusing your mind on a particular object or thought to achieve mental clarity and calm.
When your brain is scattered you can slow it down in seconds if you make those seconds count.
Slow the pace of your breathing, so your exhale is longer than your inhale.
This simple technique activates your parasympathetic nervous system and tells your brain everything is fine so it can relax.
You can also add in other senses while you meditate.
Using aromatherapy with essential oils like lavender can help you see even better results.
If you find that it’s uncomfortable sitting in silence, another tool to help calm racing thoughts is guided meditation.
This works really well because you don’t have to actively try to quiet your mind, you allow someone to guide your thoughts instead.
Another tool to help with meditation is the Muse headband.
You can listen to our episode with Muse founder, Ariel Garten, here.
The UCLA Laboratory of Neuroscience found that people who meditate show more gray matter in certain regions of the brain.
Meditation leads to stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy.
In other words, meditation can make your brain bigger, faster, and younger.

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Q stands for quiet.
U stands for unplugged.
I stands for integration.
E stands for exercise.
T stands for Transcendental Meditation.
Remember this quote: “Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble. or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.”
Next time you need to calm you mind, use the QUIET technique.

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Take a screenshot and tag us (@jimkwik) and share your favorite relaxation technique.
If you’d like to explore more relaxation techniques to calm your mind, listen here and here.